


At last, sunrise

by kimabutch (CWoodP)



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Missing Scene, Religious Themes, can someone PLEASE tell Azu they're proud of her, set during RQG 150
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:27:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23109970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CWoodP/pseuds/kimabutch
Summary: In the tunnels under Shoin's laboratory, Azu takes second watch.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43





	At last, sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for RQG 150! Title is from an instrumental track of the same name by Maree Docia.

Zolf barely needs to shake Azu to wake her up for second watch — she’s been tossing and turning all night. Her head feels heavy and her muscles ache as she dons her armour, but she’s glad to have something to focus on instead of trying in vain to sleep. 

Sitting on her pack and a Bag of Holding, she tries to breathe through the knot of anxiety in her chest, focussing instead on her sleeping companions. After waking her up, Zolf fell asleep ten feet down the tunnel, as if to be the first line of defence even while unconscious. The others are close together — Cel’s lanky form is stretched out in as many directions as possible, like they’re doing some weird horizontal dance, with one foot inches from Hamid’s head. Hamid, for his part, looks as calm as he ever does in sleep, one hand still outstretched in front of him from when Azu was holding it in her sleep. His soft snores are drowned out by those of the kobolds in the pile next to him; their breathing is slowly falling into unison with Hamid’s. They all look so peaceful, colour slowly returning to their scales, but when Azu looks at them, the pain in her chest only grows. 

She thinks of hitting two of Skraak’s companions, trying so hard not to hurt them too much but killing them anyways. The dozens of corpses from Hamid’s fireball. The screams of kobolds attacked by Cel’s spiders. She doesn’t push the memories from her mind — she doesn’t deserve to. Instead, she lets the thoughts intermingle with those of their battle with Shoin’s monster: her ineffectual strikes clanging against metal, how close it had been to grabbing Cel before Hamid’s fire had destroyed it, her certainty that she was about to die. If she had, she would never have seen the thousands of glowing green eyes stretching in every direction. Never had any chance of saving them. Oh Aphrodite, she hopes she can save them. 

There’s a sudden warmth underneath Azu’s armour. It takes her a moment to realize that it’s radiating out from where her heart pendant meets her chest, and anxiously pulls it out. The replica is glowing with the same pink light that she saw at Sasha’s resurrection, though fainter than the original. Its warmth is comfortable and reassuring, as if from a hug, and as Azu holds the heart, the comfort spreads through her body, invigorating every tired muscle and causing her armour to grow even brighter. 

Waves of emotions flow through her. Love for her companions, for the kobolds in cells, for the world, broken as it is. A longing to care for and protect the weak, to bring justice and peace to everyone she meets. And, so unfamiliar in these past few weeks, a certainty that she’s doing what’s right — that this dark, twisting path she’s walking is bringing her towards a better future. That Aphrodite knows she’s trying her best to do no more harm than necessary, and has extended Her mercy for every time she’s fallen short. 

Azu is crying now, tears running unimpeded down her face in quiet happiness. Almost instinctively, she reaches out to her goddess as if to cast a spell. Power surges through her, and before she knows what she’s doing, Azu’s on her knees by the pile of sleeping kobolds, laying a gentle hand on one of them. The divine magic that emerges from her is not simply healing; she can feel it working through the kobold’s body to neutralize Shoin’s drugs. The poison is not gone — she suspects that only time will do that — but under her hands, the kobold breathes deeper than they had a moment before, their stiff muscles relaxing from her touch. 

The power only fades after she’s repeated the spell on the other two kobolds and Azu has slumped back on her heels, exhausted. Closing her eyes, she clutches the pendant. Its warmth and glow have waned, but its comfort still remains, an ever-present reminder of Aphrodite’s love.

The world is broken and diseased, but Azu is a healer. She will make it right.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Babs for beta reading! Also, no I don't understand how Pathfinder Paladins work and I don't care to. The only important thing is that Azu is loved.


End file.
